Breaking News: Stanley resigned

McDowell Mohun Bagan received a resignation letter from the Chief Coach of senior football team Stanley Rozario today. After continuous failure of the football team Stanley was under pressure to step down from his job and the time has come after the Churchill match. Bagan lost to Churchill by 0-2 yesterday in an away encounter. Bagan is now trailing with 1 only point from 3 matches. Resignation letter is given herewith.

Here is the letters from McDowell Mohun Bagan and Stanley Rozario.

Dear Sir/Madam,

We have recieved a letter dated 13th December 2010 by Email from our Chief Coach Mr. Stanly Rozario which is appended below. This is for your information.

Regards,

Anjan Kumar Mitra

Managing Director

McDowell Mohun Bagan

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Dated: 13th December 2010

Mr. Anjan Kr. Mitra

Managing Director

McDowell Mohun Bagan

Kolkata

Dear Sir,

It is my immense pleasure to have worked as the Chief Coach of McDowell Mohun Bagan Football Team for the last several months from June 2010, during which the Team performed extremely well and reached the finals of the Federation Cup by defeating top teams like Salgaocar 6-1 and Dempo SC in the semis and lost to East Bengal due to referee’s poor decisions. In the Platinum Jubilee Cup, the Team once again gave a wonderful performance by defeating Sheffield FC of England and lost via tie-breaker in the final match. In the Calcutta Football League, we stood runners-up. So in all three tournaments the Team stood Runners-up. However during this entire period, many vital players got injured and got sickness eg. Diamondstar of Asian origin played only few matches and got injured. Chidi Edeh was also having injury and with that he tried his level best. Apart from this Sk. Azim, Ishfaq, Sagram, Kinshuk and Satish Kumar were unavailable due to injuries and sickness for many days which affected the team performance.

With these injury problems we started the I League, still the team played well against Pune FC at Pune and drew the match 1-1 after unfortunately squandering many simple chances to score and win by a handsome margin. The team conceded a goal in the 82nd minute of a defensive lapse. Losing to HAL, Bangalore was a disaster and a great disappointment for all of us. Still we started well in the away game against strong Churchill Brothers. But we conceded an early goal in the very 3rd minute which killed the momentum and the spirit of the game. But boys tried their level best and created many chances but could not able to utilize and we lost the match by 2-0 of a poor penalty decision of Referee.

Since Mohun Bagan is a formidable club and top contenders in Indian Football, I want the Team should bounce back and bring back the winning attitude. So in this point of time in the greater interest of the Club and the Team, I would like to step down from my job as Chief Coach.

I would like to thank with all my heart the President, Mr. S.S. Bose, Mr. Debashis Dutta as well as you and all the Executive Committee members of the Club for having faith in me and believing in me and for giving me an opportunity to coach the Football Team. I also thank Hemanta Dora, Satyabrata Bhowmick, Dr. Pratim Ray, Prince Rufus and other support staff for their cooperation and support. My special thanks to the supporters and members of Mohun Bagan for encouraging me and helping me to do well in all these tournaments. I would like to thank the Media for their cooperation and motivation.

My heartfelt thanks to all the players for their hard work and determination as well as love and affection shown to me. My best wishes and prayers for all the players and the Team for a successful season ahead and future.

Warm Regards,

Stanly Rozario M.

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Churchill Brothers 2-0 Mohun Bagan

Bagan coach Stanley Rosario got an opportunity to save his job – but this was his worst week this season. First Bagan went down 1-2 against HAL at home on the 8th and in 4 days Bagan went down 0-2 to Churchill Brothers in Goa. A lack of creativity, poor match reading and ideas ended up in a very poor 1st three rounds of the 4th iLeague for Bagan. The trophyless coach whose team was relegated from the iLEague last year in spite of playing the Federation Cup final, would find it difficult to save his job this season.

Chidi is half-fit – nursing injuries – and Barreto is perhaps no more a 90 mins player. Any good coach will make sure both of the them are used in such a way that they become effective. But, the coach seems to have different ideas. Manish was a failure as a snatcher and a blocker today – but was there in the ground for 80 mins. Ashim replaced Biswajit though Ishfaq had to be there in the ground (he replaced Gouranga). One wonders why Jayanta was there for only 10 minutes.

One wonders if the coach has ever spoken to the defense – corrected their mistakes, told Manish exactly what he should do – remind Muritala that this is a team game! One wonders if there were any plan B or plan C in case Bagan concedes a goal at the beginning of the game. One wonders whether Bagan coach had any plan A at all!

A poor decision of taking Diamondstar out in Federation Cup final was costly – but Bagan coach did not learn a lesson. Its time he puts down his papers for the fan and supporters have lost faith in him. With Sukhwinder looking for a job, David Booth  and Phillip de Rider available, Subhash Bhowmick sitting idle – Bagan officials will have to keep aside their differences and ego and take a decision to save the team and take necessary actions – for we have 23 more rounds to go!

Team:

Mohun Bagan: Shilton, Biswajit Saha (Ashim Biswas), Rahul Kumar, Harpreet, Dhanrajan, Gouranga (Ishfaq), Manish (Jayanta), Barreto, Snehasis, Chidi, Muritala Ali
 

MB vs HAL – Consolidation of defense holds the key for the Mariners

Mohun Bagan will take on HAL today at Salt Lake Stadium in their first home match in i-League 2010-11 campaign. Mariners need to display more defensive consolidation along with aggresive attitude to earn full 3 points.

For the mariners, it has been a year of mixed fortune with patches of brilliant outings followed by pretty ordinary display. Runners up in all 3 tournaments (including an invitation tournament) in this year so far, by no means, can be evaluated as ‘living up to the expectation’ for the squad and for the team management of national club of India.

Let’s acknowledge the fact that football is a game where strategy and co-ordination are equally important with skill, stamina and individual brilliance. Here are some of the statistics of the current green and maroon brigade –
>    Average age of the squad – 23.1 yrs
>        Number of players more than 30 yrs old – 2
>      Number of players between 20 and 25 yrs of age – 21
>      Number of players represented in Santosh trophy (in 2010) – 11
>      Number of ex-TFA players in the squad – 8
>      Number of ex-MBSFA player in the squad – 5
 
Going by the above facts and figures, no one will argue about the stamina, skill and individual caliber of the squad. Although couple of key players still in national duty and  Asian quota foreigner is a big question mark; arguably this is really a squad with agility and versatility. Then why are we still haunting for the first trophy of this year? Let’s ask some more questions to ourselves to arrive at the conclusion.
 
-Is it the goal scoring ability by the ace strikers? Can’t be. Muritala and Chidi have been scoring goal on regular basis along with Barreto.
 
-Then is it the inefficiency of the midfielders? Most unlikely. Other wise the strikers would have been without the supply in penetrative zone.
 
-So the problem might have been with the defensive then? And we are perhaps judging correct this time. The team management has not been able to put forward a defense with right kind of co-ordination in the field. Any green and maroon supporter, who has been watching our club’s encounters this year, would be able to point out following shortcomings of our defense –
>          The defenders are standing in a line very close to own penalty box when opposition goalkeeper is taking a goal kick.
>         We have been allowing opposition to cross the middle third of our own half before we go for the snatching and consequently the final tackle being offered very near to our own penalty box
>          Defenders, at times, get isolated from the others due to poor covering and as a result they hesitate to go for the final assault
 
These have been happening because the Mariners don’t have stable and persistent combinations of stoppers and side backs till today. In world football, this has been a key differentiator in terms of team performance. Whether it’s Puyol-Pique combination in Spain and Barcelona or Ferdinand-Vidic combination in Manchester United, the story remains the same. Unfortunately, for the Mariners, in absence of any such combination, oppositions have been taking the advantage of this shortfall by putting more pressure on our defense and the gap between the defense and mid-field gets widen as the game progresses. As a result, either we concedes early goal and put ourselves into the pressure or are unable to maintain the lead by conceding goal at the later stage of the match.
 
Now that we might have identified the problem but what is the remedy? We can’t get a magical defensive combination tomorrow or can’t expect the arrival of a foreign player who will change the complexion of the defense single handedly from the next match. Our recommendation is to change the combination of the squad and go for 4-1-3-2 formation instead of 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 formation. Let’s consolidate our defense by placing a player at snatching and linking (between deep defense and midfield) position. This will relieve some pressure on the defense and will ensure more ball supply for the strikers. As the game progresses, depending on the situation, the formation can be changed.
 
It’s time for the team management to think smart to sail the ship in turbulent weather. We strongly believe that ‘out of the box’ thinking, smart strategy will result in much improved co-ordination amongst the players with skill and stamina. And that is the true recipe of success in the game of football.        

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